18 August 2008

been a while!

If you're reading this, you probably know that I took a break from my books blog, something I haven't done in my admittedly short time (about a year and a half) since I started the blog. I'm planning to go back later this week, but meanwhile, I wanted to check in and say hi over here.

We're all moved in. Our friend Crystal has been staying with us for almost three weeks now (she leaves Wednesday) so the house is at least functioning well enough to have a guest, and I feel like that's good progress, considering we only moved in three weeks ago ourselves (two or three days before she arrived).

We also had a housewarming party, which I think went well. It wasn't without glitches, but I think that in general people had a good time and left feeling well-fed and beveraged. The guests were a combination of people we work with, some friends, and all the neighbors on our block. I was really amazed at how many neighbors came to check out the new people! I just put a colorful barbeque flyer on their doors and hoped one or two would show up, but all except one household came.

The best part of the house is the deck, which is where I try to spend as much time as possible. There are bird feeders and the birds come in swarms. Crystal and I decided feeding the birds is sort of like blogging. You put out what you hope is the right content and make it accessible and hope people/birds show up. I think our bird feeders are the dooce or even ichanhascheezburger of the bird world, actually. It's not that we put out such great food, just grocery store seed, but the location is a busy one. Our yard backs onto National Forest, so there are plenty of birds. I can't decide whether the ravens who come every day and caw their beaks off for leftovers are trolls or Oprah. Today they're making strange noises that I think might be mating sounds, but they're up too high in the trees for me to be able to look and see if I can figure it out. And don't birds mate in the spring? We put the food on the railing in the morning; if any is left by evening (rare) then we remove it, because we also have bears, coyotes, raccoons and skunks, and we don't want to encourage them. Right now, there's a squirrel on the railing eating a chunk of farmer's market raspberry-orange bread that was supposed to be a treat for the ravens. The squirrels like to hide raven treats in my flower beds so they can snack on them later. I tried to explain to this one that the bread was for the ravens, but he just made weird squeaky noises, turned around, and started stuffing his cheeks faster. Then he ran off with the whole remaining slice of bread hanging from his teeth.

Whoa, those Australian crows sound weird! Nope, our ravens just caw, maybe louder than the smaller members of the crow family I'm used to from where I grew up, but it's still cawing.

Bunnies! I wish we had more bunnies here. My son mentions seeing them now and then, but I never see them. Some neighbors at our party claimed they see bears every morning, but I haven't seen any yet. Maybe they get up earlier than I do!